The hot water heater on my 1999 scr 3000 recently started leaking and it appears it is time for replacement. My engines are raw water cooled and the current one was not hooked to the raw water although it did have a heat exchanger in it. In looking for a new one I've been looking at the Seaward and Kuuma brands. The instructions for kuuma specifically says not to hook it up to raw water but seaward says nothing. Of course the models without the heat exchanger are a bit less in price and if it cannot be hooked up to raw water no sense getting one with a heat exchanger. I was wondering if anyone had hooked them up and what the experience was. Thanks

Thanks Mike. Both models have an aluminum tank and HE. I do use the hot water heater but never had it hooked up to the engines but as I was looking to get a new one I started thinking whether I would be paying for an option that never is going to be used anyway.

I don't think you want to run salt water through the heat exchanger of a hot water heater. It would be fine if the boat were strictly freshwater (even then I would be worried about the boat being moved after it was sold). I've only ever seen the heat exchanger connected to the heat exchanger on the engine routing AF through the hot water heater.

I replaced the original some years ago. Even though it has the connections for plumbing HE into the engine, I agreed with Shrew, raw, salt water running thru the engines is bad enough let alone thru a hot water heater. Maybe if I had closed cooling, I may consider it..